Daddy Issues
by AllyKat88
Summary: Everybody knows that Lydia and Stiles are having a baby. Well, everyone except Lydia's father. She can't exactly tell him she's pregnant at her stepmother's baby shower... or can she? or, Lydia and Stiles are super cute together whilst trying to pretend they're not hiding a huge secret.


Lydia smoothed her hands gently over the swell of her stomach and gazed longingly at the battered pair of dungarees she had been wearing almost constantly for the past three months. They were now scrunched in a pile on the bed with Lydia's second favourite outfit; her pyjamas. She pulled angrily at the stretchy fabric of the sweater dress she wore and turned back to the mirror, admiring herself with frustration.

"Be honest, do I look fat in this?" Lydia huffed, twisting from side to side again.

Stiles set his case file down on his stomach and ran a hand through his hair.

"Honestly?" he asked. A smile quirked his mouth as Lydia's reflection pursed its lips. "You still look pregnant."

Lydia scowled in the mirror and Stiles laughed, picking up the file again and studying it closely. Lydia could still see his eyes wrinkled with amusement over the top of the papers.

"Perfect," she sighed sarcastically and grabbed her clutch bag off of the bed beside Stiles' feet. "Why aren't you ready yet?"

Stiles rolled his eyes and dropped the file next to him on the bed finally.

"Do I not look ready?" He gestured to the length of his body and Lydia bit her lip.

"You look ready to remind me why I married you," Lydia teased before slipping on her boots and running a final hand over her stomach. "I knew we should have just told them earlier. Your Dad knows, my Mom knows, the pack knew before I did. I can't announce that we're having a baby at a baby shower. It's just too embarrassing." Lydia toyed nervously with the end of her braid. "And why are you even invited anyway? Showers are supposed to be female only."

Stiles stretched his neck and jumped up from the bed. Slowly, he walked around the bed to place his hands gently on Lydia's hips and pressed a chaste kiss into her hair. Carefully, he slipped Lydia's clutch out of her hand and threw it on the bed before lifting her arms like a puppeteer and draping them over his shoulders. He leant back to look her in the eye and hooked a long finger under her chin. She lifted her head willingly and pouted slightly when she saw him smiling softly.

"I love you," he said sincerely, "and I promise to spend this whole shower thing holding things in front of you so nobody can see that in just four and a half months I am going to be the happiest man on the planet."

Stiles captured Lydia's lips reverently before enveloping her in his arms. He stroked over the top of her head tenderly and peppered kisses across her shoulder until she giggled and shoved him away playfully.

"Come on, we had better go," said Lydia. She grazed Stiles cheek with her lips in a soft kiss as she reached around him and retrieved her bag again.

Two hours later Lydia was practising her best smile in the mirrored walls of the elevator as Stiles drummed his fingers impatiently against the hand rail. Lydia's stomach churned as she clutched his other hand in her own. Since almost vomiting in the elevator on her previous visit to her father's apartment building, the temporary loss of equilibrium found in rising twenty floors at high speed had become one of her least favourite sensations. She'd never know why they called it morning sickness when it lasted all day.

Lydia swallowed the bile threatening to rise in her throat as the doors opened and they burst out into the brightly lit corridor beyond. Lydia took a grateful breath of air as Stiles rubbed her back gently before wrapping his hand around hers.

There were only three sprawling apartments on the top floor and Lydia tried to shake the itch in her throat as they grew nearer to apartment 503.

Stiles squeezed her hand reassuringly and slid the baby pink gift bag, that she had specially selected because she hated it the most, down his arms slightly so that he could press the bell.

"Ready?" he asked quietly. Soft bells chimed in the apartment through the door, intermingled with the sound of chattering voices and soft piano music.

"No," Lydia conceded as the door swung open and she forced her lips into a dazzling smile and threw her arms out.

"Clarissa," she exclaimed as she leaned forwards to gently kiss the cheek of an elegantly pregnant blond. She kicked out with her heel at Stiles' shin when she heard him chuckling at her false enthusiasm behind her. He sagged against the wall slightly.

Clarissa withdrew herself from Lydia's embrace and regarded her with curiosity.

Clarissa was her father's mid-life crisis, or so Lydia liked to say. Her hair was only just golden enough to not wash out her grey, blue eyes. She styled it in a soft, sweeping fringe that almost covered the crows feet beginning to form at the corners of her eyes and mouth. They were a result of the mid-morning cigarette breaks Lydia had discovered she takes every time her father starts taking about work or how much money she'd spent. She was also precisely eight years, two hundred and forty seven days younger that Lydia's mother. It was when Lydia's ravings about her stepmother reached this level of specificity that Stiles was forced to strip her out of whatever dress she had worn to Clarissa's latest soiree and make love to her until she'd forgotten about the whole evening.

"Oh, it's so lovely to see you both," Clarissa almost wailed, oblivious to the daggers Lydia was glaring into her back as Clarissa leaned across her to place a kiss on both of Stiles' cheeks like she had become French overnight. As she leant back, Clarissa's eyes flickered over Lydia. "And you look just charming as usual, darling."

She was lying. Lydia could see it in the way that she smiled tightly after she'd said it as if to say, _do you believe me?_

"As do you," Lydia responded politely as Stiles' fingers brushed lightly over her lower back and pushed her over the threshold.

"Where do you want me to put this?" He held up the bag when Lydia pressed her lips together and Clarissa's eyes lit up like a child at the fair.

She turned around and waved for them to follow as she said, "Just this way. Everyone is so excited to see you both. Most of them haven't met Stiles yet, did you know that, Lydia? You can show him off to all of my friends."

Lydia rolled her eyes and watched Clarissa's ever growing buttocks disappear into the sitting room.

"Bitch," Lydia muttered, following Clarissa's perfume exhaustedly down the hallway. Stiles let out a long breath and pressed a lingering kiss to Lydia's cheek and then another in her hair.

"Come on, let's get this party started."

Stiles collapsed back against the fridge door in the relative quiet of his father-in-law's kitchen and took a long gulp of his beer. Beside him, Lydia frowned as a young man dressed in black finished pouring a fourth bottle of champagne into glasses and carried a tray of tall decadent flutes into the sitting room.

"Do you ever wonder if you're actually living in the real world?" Lydia mused quietly before sipping on her water. "Why does it feel like we're the only people here that seem to think throwing a baby shower, that's actually really just another cocktail party, is so not normal?"

Stiles snorted into the neck of his beer and shook his head.

"Nothing about being with you is ever normal, Lydia."

Lydia scowled and they swayed together as she swatted at the bottle in his hands. Stiles swerved his hand away from her and pressed her gently back against fridge.

Lydia tipped her head back against the door and closed her eyes.

"I would do anything for one of those right now," she whined, eyeing the beer.

Stiles smiled sympathetically and took a final swig before dropping the beer a bucket of similarly empty bottles.

When they were eighteen, Stiles might have been surprised by Lydia expressing any interest in a drink that didn't come with some kind of cherry. Back then it had felt like she was constantly surprising him, and she still did in some ways. Mostly, however, she had flourished into a new Lydia. He often thought that maybe this was just the Lydia he had always seen through the haze of lacrosse players and ditsy head tilts. Stiles couldn't even remember the last time she had said anything he thought fell short of absolute genius.

Now she was Lydia in dungarees swiping paint off of her cheek in the living room of their new house. She was Lydia pulling him into the back seat of his Jeep under the stars buried deep in the heart of the woods like it was her favourite place in the world. She was Lydia who wouldn't take of her wedding ring for anything. She was Lydia with her head hung over the toilet. Lydia dancing around the bedroom waving a pregnancy test in her hand like a trophy.

And he was Stiles, as in love with her as ever.

"That would certainly help to maintain your cover," he pointed out, "but maybe wouldn't be such a hit with the midwife."

He stepped towards her and traced a hand lovingly over her stomach. Lydia licked her lips sheepishly and watched as he smoothed the dress down until a small bump stretched the fabric against his palms.

"Someone's going to come looking for us," Lydia surmised reluctantly. Stiles pouted gently as she reached around him and poured herself another glass of ice water. "I haven't even seen my Dad yet and we're already hiding in the kitchen."

Stiles tilted his head and pushed himself away from the counter top.

"Perhaps that means we're just excellent judges of character," he suggested in a voice so low that Lydia felt her cheeks flush. She was sure her face probably coordinated well with her hair as he dropped a soft kiss into the curve of her neck and ran his fingertips lightly down her spine. Even through the chunky knit of her sweater dress she could feel the heat of his touch threatening to collapse her knees.

"None of that," she scolded, rounding on him and jabbing a finger into his chest. She wanted to sound seriously but honestly her heart just wasn't in it. "That is exactly how we got into this mess." She punctuated her words by pointedly lowering her gaze to her stomach before flicking them back up to meet his eyes. Those ridiculous, cocky, beautiful whiskey eyes.

He replied with only a smug half smile that he usually followed up with a, 'I did that', or his classic, 'I knocked up Lydia Martin' dance.

Either way she never knew if it made her want to kiss him or punch him in his self satisfied face.

Lydia smiled tightly for what felt like the millionth time as Clarissa's mother finally relinquished her hand and clinked her stillettoed nails against her glass of Pimm's. Outwardly Lydia was confident and bubbly as always but Stiles could tell by the way she fiddled unconsciously with the her engagement that her skin was crawling.

"Well at least you're doing it the right way," Clarissa's mother declared, pursing her lips as she took a sip of her drink. She had lipstick on her teeth in a dark plum colour that Lydia noted she also wore on her nails and wondered why anyone would ever choose that colour twice. "So many young things today doing it all backwards. No wonder so many marriages end in divorce. If you can't handle a baby, you certainly can't handle a marriage."

"Do you have any other grandchildren, Mrs Clayton?" Stiles interjected quickly when he saw Lydia eyeing his Old Fashioned longingly.

"Oh, please, call me Penny," she gushed as her fingers grasped onto Stiles' forearm. He winced as her talons dug into his skin through his shirt.

Lydia thought she might gag at the way Penny's eyes raked over Stiles' face like a vulture.

"Oh, look, the buffet is out. If you'll excuse us, " Lydia chirped and drained the last of her grape presse. She had befriended a particularly friendly waiter to just keep them coming in a champagne flute with a raspberry once Clarissa's hawk eyed guests had noted she was only drinking water. After three rounds of insisting she was on a three week detox, "Water only," she had given up.

She slipped her fingers hurriedly through Stiles' before yanking him quickly in the direction of the buffet table. Once they were out of ear shot he laughed and shook his head.

She was a marvel, his wife. Her carefully composed smiles, the way she always seemed to know just what to say. Just biting enough to get her point across but sweet enough to make the receiver of her jibes question whether they had heard her correctly. He had asked her once what her secret was and she had confided in him that you could say anything you wanted as long as you smile and nod as you say it. Apparently the following confusion allowed a few moments to make your excuses and escape. At the time he had praised her for the genius of it all, but she had only shrugged and replied matter of factly, "It's basic psychology, really. To communicate we rely on three main parts of conversation. What's being said, how it's being said and the body language of the person saying it. Mix those up and it confuses your brain."

"What are you laughing at?" Lydia pulled him from his thoughts with a prod to the stomach.

She frowned as he shook his head again and placed a gently kiss between her brows.

"Now, now, Lydia. Don't sulk; you'll get frown lines," he murmured against her skin. Lydia didn't want to laugh, she didn't want to give him the satisfaction, but the way he lightened his voice and sounded suspiciously like her mother made the corners of her cherry lips quirk.

"Just shush and protect me. I'm starving," she huffed and dragged him in the direction of the desserts.

As it turned out, Lydia father wasn't even at the party. He arrived shortly after the remnants of the food had been cleared away with a briefcase in hand, still dressed in his work attire.

Lydia sighed tiredly in the seconds before he caught sight of her and then opened her arms wide and exclaimed, "Daddy, you made it!"

Stiles smiled warmly as Clarissa stood patiently aside as Mr Martin returned his daughters embrace with one arm and kissed her hastily on the cheek.

"Of course, darling," he said, dropping his briefcase into the hands of a passing waitress and instructing her to put it in his study. "I couldn't miss an evening with my three favourite girls." He pulled Clarissa under his arm and placed a hand over her bulging stomach affectionately.

Then, as if noticing he was there for the first time, he turned to Stiles and appraised him quickly.

"And of course, Stiles," Mr Martin greeted him with a firm handshake and a clap on the shoulder. Lydia winced slightly as she watched Stiles' wrist tense as her fathers iron grip threatened to crush his slender fingers.

He didn't back down though and Lydia smiled adoringly as he gripped her father's arm jovially and nodded a confident, "Mr Martin," in return.

They stood in awkward silence for a moment before Lydia's father clapped his hands together, making poor Clarissa jump and turned his attention to Lydia.

"Well, can you believe it? I'll be a father by Tuesday," he announced enthusiastically.

Stiles almost pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation as he felt Lydia stiffen beside him. She seemed to be struggling with herself, no doubt a war was taking place in her head. Before she could speak Stiles jumped in with a congratulatory smile towards Clarissa and a pointed glare for Mr Martin.

"Er, Tuesday?" he asked casually, as though he was asking if it was likely to rain that weekend.

"Oh, we're having a caesarean birth," Clarissa interjected, oblivious to Lydia's discomfort and the way she had gently placed her fourth faux champagne down on the nearest table in preparation to bolt.

"Well that's... organised," Stiles joked in an attempt to ease some of the tension.

Lydia's father smiled and nodded conversationally before he hammered the final nail in the coffin.

"Yes, well, I've got a big business trip on the thirteenth so we thought-"

"Excuse me?" Lydia choked as Stiles grimaced.

He reached out for her hand but she tucked it away. Under any other circumstances Stiles might have thought that she was adorable, standing there in her grey sweater dress, delicate pearls draped around her neck and her hands curled into petite fist at her sides. He could see, however, that the evening had worn away all of her courteous exterior and all he could do was prepare himself for the inevitable explosion that was to follow.

Lydia took a step back and laughed incredulously.

"Oh my god, you're actually serious, aren't you? Well here's a newsflash from Parenting 101, you can't _become_ a father on Tuesday because you already are one. And not that you'll probably care to know, but you'll be a grandfather by Christmas." She shook her head as if it might clear some of the rage flooding through her veins. She allowed him a moment to process her words before she turned rigidly to Stiles and ground out, "Stiles, get your coat. We're leaving."

She didn't spare them another glance as she pushed her way through the crowd of swaying middle aged women towards the door.

Stiles knew she was crying. He could see it in the tense lock of her shoulders and feel it in the gentle tug of their tether being pulled taught. When she needed him like this it felt like an iron rod between their two bodies with no length, no give. It pulled him into her until they were both lost in each others touch.

Stiles briefly contemplated apologising on Lydia's behalf but after a split second of consideration he decided they just didn't deserve it. He didn't lie awake at night listening to Lydia sob about the most recent event her father had missed or the dinner he had stood her up on, to simple turn around and apologise.

With a curt nod, he turned on his heel and trailed after his wife.

He found her wrestling their coats away from a stricken maid and he didn't say a word as she threw his jacket at him. He knew she didn't want to talk now. She just wanted to escape.

And if Stiles had vowed to dedicate his life to anything, it was saving Lydia Martin.

"Where are we going?" Lydia asked suspiciously as Stiles missed the second possible right turn that could have taken them home.

He shot her a quick wink and a crooked smile.

"You'll see," he assured her cryptically.

He kept his hand on the gear shift but stretched his little finger out to stroke lightly over the back of her hand were it lay beside the console.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently when she turned her head away from him.

"No," she replied immediately.

He tried his luck. "Do you want to go home and fuck?"

He can see her lips roll together in the window as she continued to watch the houses fade away into trees. He turned back to the road as he made a left onto the preserve.

"No," she said again, although this time she didn't sound so sure.

When it came to her father, Lydia usually just needed to get out of her head and at the age of eighteen, Stiles had been delighted to discover that unlocking Lydia's mind usually involved being naked.

He licked his lips as he concentrated on manoeuvring the Jeep up the track to the cliff edge.

Lydia surveyed their surroundings and nodded her approval.

"Is this the part where you tell me you're just not ready to be a father and bury me alive in the woods?" Lydia asked after a moment of watching the sun sink lower in the sky. She pulled down her visor to shield her eyes from the oranges rays.

Stiles laughed but it was quieter than she expected. She noticed he'd knotted his fingers together in his lap.

"Well, I wasn't planning on burying you alive but.." he trailed off and let out a long breath. "What if I'm not ready?"

To anyone else it might have sounded like he was reconsidering their decision to become parents. Lydia, however, knew every line of Stiles' face, every furrow of his brow and the way his voice became small when he was afraid of disappointing her. Not that he ever had disappointed her in their three years of marriage. What he really meant was, 'what if I'm not a good father?'

Lydia unfastened her seatbelt and pulled her legs up onto the seat so that she could turn to face him. She thumbed his wedding ring lovingly before wrapping her small hand around his.

"I don't know if I'm ready either," she admitted, "but I know there's nobody else in the world that I'd rather be doing this with." She gives him a small smile. "And for what it's worth, I think you're going to be amazing."

"I've told you at least twenty times that I'm not having sex in this Jeep," Lydia gasped as Stiles' fingers grazed over her lower back, dipping teasingly into the waistband of her tights.

Stiles pulled his lips away from her neck and scanned his eyes over the length of her body. Her shoes were kicked underneath the front seat and her hair had come lose and hung in kinks around her face. He wiped a thumb over her chin where her lipstick had smudged and trailed his fingertips down her neck. She sighed gently and repositioned herself on his lap. He could feel her everywhere, her body pressed flush against his, and as usual he wondered how he'd ever managed to win her over.

"You're really committed to that?" he taunted her.

The sun had set hours ago and it was dark in the Jeep aside from the torch Stiles had dug out of the glovebox. The beam of light made shadows dance across their faces and in the darkness Stiles almost missed the way Lydia's lips curved ever so slightly. It didn't matter if they couldn't see each other. They knew each others bodies like the back of their hands.

"Yes, I am," she said firmly as Stiles rolled his hips playfully against her. "Maybe I'm not."

Stiles pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before he brushed his lips against her ear and murmured,

"Now, stop complaining and help me live out my high school fantasies."

Lydia rolled her eyes.

"You wish."


End file.
